"Retreat! Retreat! Let's go!"
Seeing that all was lost, Huyan Qing hurriedly called to his men and fled for his life.
As for Tucha, the chief of the White Rock Tribe, after a spear struck his arm, his personal guards took him and fled in a panic.
"You want to leave now? Too late! Stay right here!"
Chen Jianfeng pressed his advantage without mercy. He had originally been slightly weaker than Huyan Qing, but Chen Mu had imbued his bone saber with a spirit, allowing it to respond to his thoughts. Its power had increased greatly, enough for him to hold a firm advantage over Huyan Qing.
He pursued relentlessly, but a warning suddenly flashed in his mind, and he hastily leaped back.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two eerie, pale blue streaks flashed through the air. He raised his bone saber and barely managed to block the steel needles shooting at him!
"Hmph! Don't think Chen Village is the only place with hidden weapons!"
Huyan Qing shouted bitterly, his figure swiftly vanishing into the night.
He was secretly annoyed. He had prepared those hidden weapons for Tucha, but had never expected to use them here.
Chen Jianfeng broke into a cold sweat and dared not pursue him any farther.
The steel needles were immensely powerful. Had Huyan Qing not been desperate to escape and fired them in haste, Chen Jianfeng might not have been able to block them under normal circumstances.
With their chiefs both gone, the few remaining members of the Black Water Tribe and the White Rock Tribe lost all will to fight. They cast aside their helmets and armor and fled for their lives.
Chen Zihu led the hunting team in pursuit all the way to the village gates. Only at Chen Hongjie's order did they stop and turn back to treat the wounded.
Though Chen Village had won the battle, it had suffered heavy casualties.
Almost everyone who had fought was wounded. More than a hundred had died, and nearly another hundred were seriously injured. Of all the village's young and able-bodied adults, less than a quarter were still fit to fight.
The one consolation was that Chen Mu had previously made a batch of talisman papers for the village's martial artists, giving each of them another means of saving their lives. Thus, apart from the clan leader, no other martial artists had died in battle.
Given some time, all those martial artists would be able to recover.
Besides that, the young and able-bodied adults had held all the enemies at the village entrance with their blood, so the elderly, children and women at the back of the village were largely unharmed.
They had protected their loved ones with their lives, and their sacrifice had not been in vain.
The villagers had no time to grieve. Everyone got to work, hurrying to treat the village's wounded.
Chen Hongjie, too, set aside his own injuries and led a group of young and able-bodied adults who still had the strength to repair the gates at the village entrance.
No one knew whether another tribe might take advantage of the fire to loot them at a time like this. After all, besides the Black Water Tribe and the White Rock Tribe, there was also Ironwood Village nearby.
Even if Ironwood Village kept to itself, there were plenty of other tribes a little farther away. At a time like this, they could only truly rely on themselves.
Among the Five Elements Talisman Arts Chen Mu specialized in, wood-element talisman arts were highly effective at healing. So he, too, went without rest and helped treat the wounded.
He was deeply upset that he had failed to save the clan leader, but things had come to this, and there was nothing he could do to turn them around.
Half a month later, inside the Chen clan's ancestral hall.
During that time, another forty or fifty of the village's seriously wounded had gradually died.
Many could clearly have been saved, but the village's medical resources were limited, and only a handful of people knew medicine. No matter how hard they tried, they still could not save them.
Now, of the entire village's young and able-bodied adults, only the two hundred or so people in the ancestral hall still had any real fighting strength.
Chen Hongjie, the new clan leader, carried an urn to the altar table and solemnly placed it there.
Behind him, several men carrying wooden tablets placed them in front of the urn.
Chen Mu looked up. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand, urns were enshrined in the ancestral hall, each with several wooden tablets placed before it.
In the center of each tablet were the names of that generation's clan leader and other important leaders. The smaller characters below were the names of its other clan members.
Not every villager could have their name recorded on a wooden tablet.
Only villagers who had contributed to the village, or even died in battle, were entitled to that honor.
The village would cremate those villagers who had lived without distinction, but their names would not enter the ancestral hall.
"Bow in thanks to our forebears!"
At Chen Hongjie's sorrowful shout, the more than two hundred young and able-bodied adults present all knelt and bowed to the ground.
"...May our ancestors watch over us, and may Chen Village endure without end and flourish for generations."
After a long prayer, Chen Hongjie led the villagers in kneeling three times and kowtowing nine times, completing the ceremony.
Afterward, the ordinary villagers left one after another, leaving only the village's twenty-odd key members.
"Hongjie, since our people have just about recovered, let's go wipe out the Black Water Tribe in a little while and avenge the old clan leader! They lost so many martial artists back then; they're certainly no match for us!"
The speaker was Chen Honglie, Chen Shanyu's nephew and the one closest to him. All this time, he had been arguing for a counterattack against the Black Water Tribe and the White Rock Tribe.
Chen Hongjie shook his head. "I'm afraid we can't now! I received word that three days ago, Huyan Qing ambushed and killed Tucha, then led the Black Water Tribe to swiftly swallow up the White Rock Tribe with lightning speed. Their two tribes have now become one. Although their strength has suffered, they aren't an opponent we can easily defeat."
Chen Honglie's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What? Huyan Qing's methods are ruthless! Then we..."
Though he was eager for revenge, he was not blind to the bigger picture. He could only sigh and say no more.
Tribal annexations were very common in the Wilderness, but Chen Village had no way to strengthen itself through such means.
In the Wilderness, groups that called themselves "villages" had generally migrated from outside the Wilderness.
Those groups often placed great importance on bloodlines. They were clans bound together by blood and a shared surname, and unless circumstances were exceptional, they would not take in people from other tribes.
Even if they did take in another tribe, that tribe would only become a vassal of the clan tribe. Only members of the clan would hold power, so few tribes were willing to join a tribe formed by a clan.
The tribes native to the Wilderness, however, had no such notions. Mergers and splits were very common among them, and fighting within tribes was also frequent.
Relatively speaking, native tribes were therefore not as united, and their members were not as loyal to them.
In truth, both models had their own strengths and weaknesses; neither could be said to be better.
Chen Hongjie tapped the armrest beside him and made his decision.
"Although our village still has more than six hundred people, only around two hundred young and able-bodied adults can actually go out to fight. We absolutely can't afford to lose them.
"So I've decided that we'll devote all our strength to defending the village. For the time being, we must avoid further conflict with other tribes."
He turned to look at Chen Mu, who had remained silent beside him.
"A Mu, have you made any progress on the research into farming that the old clan leader discussed with you?"
Chen Mu thought for a moment, then nodded.
"I've made a little headway, but we'll have to try it to know how well it actually works."
Chen Hongjie's face lit up. "Good! Then starting today, you won't need to strengthen weapons anymore. Focus on managing the village's farmland. I'll assign ten people to you for now, and if you need more supplies or manpower, just tell me."
Chen Village now had more than four hundred elderly people, children and women. None of them were suited to going out hunting, and there was not much work for them to do in the village. If they could develop the farmland now, they could make the most of that labor. For Chen Village, it would be like charcoal delivered in a snowstorm.
"All right!" Chen Mu agreed, a trace of anticipation in his eyes.
He had not expected the Five Elements Runes to seem so well suited to use in nature. He had tried a few things before, and the results had all been surprisingly good.
Even he did not know what could be grown in farmland transformed by the Five Elements Runes.